Bloom Where You Are Planted
Bloom where you are planted. That saying is ubiquitous with my Aunt Melinda in my mind. It was on the wall in her guest bathroom, which I frequented with such regularity. It was so ingrained in my psyche that I thought it was Melinda’s personal challenge to me directly. She probably never thought about it again after she hung it there, but it seemed to me to be what she was doing her whole life long… blooming.
I wrote a lengthy remembrance of Melinda for her obituary, which I honestly thought my family wouldn’t go for. I had prepared myself to post that here on my blog, thinking the long version wouldn’t see the light of day in any other way. But since they did go for it, I can link to that and use this space to say all the things I forgot to say there.
In preparation for the memorial service, my Aunt Martha asked for us to share stories for her to give to the pastor, who didn’t know Melinda. I thought maybe I’d shared all my stories in the obituary, but I opened up an email anyway and things just began to flow…and since these things couldn't all be in the pastor’s remarks…and I do have full control over my blog…here are some of those things:
I have so many great memories of going to Bass Hall with Melinda... for shows, for the opera, for the Van Cliburn. I remember one time we were at a show and she found out that the latest Harry Potter book was being released at midnight, so we went across the street to Barnes and Noble after the show and waited in line until midnight with all the die-hard fans for her to buy it. Just because she'd never done that before and thought it would be fun (I'd never even read a Harry Potter book…still haven’t).
Every time we'd go to an event together, like the opera ball or a VIP event, she'd task me with introducing myself to everyone first so that if she couldn't remember their name they'd have to say it before she had to search her mind for it. I was so introverted, but I think that might have been her way of getting me to be braver.
She held onto her old Buick with a tight fist, even after she had a nice beautiful new car (which replaced the only-marginally-old Buick). She used it like a truck, to carry bird feed to take to the park. One time it was infested with ants, and another time with wasps, but she still chose to drive it first.
She'd talk to everyone around the park, including the dogs (which she had treats for in her pockets), but most importantly the ducks who she was really there for, and their leader Sarge, who was Melinda’s constant companion (soul-mate?) and who we covered in the obit.
Melinda and my dad found a Jack Russell Terrier at Candleridge too... she followed them around until they finally decided to pick her up and bring her home with them. I was asleep on the pullout couch and this little bundle of energy jumped right up on me... and they told me she was mine because I was the only one who didn't already have two dogs. Mable (my only-dog) was chagrined. I named the JRT Meg, and we took her home to Lorenzo. Melinda was supposed to be putting out signs and trying to find Meg’s “real” owners, but she never did. She said if they wanted to find her, they should put out signs. She said she looked for signs, but later confessed that she never really did. Meg was meant to be ours.
After I moved away from DFW, every time I visited Melinda, she took me to Saltgrass Steakhouse (always insisted on paying), where I had a chicken fried steak and a diet coke and she had a steak and a glass of wine. Sometimes, if I was there for a few days, we’d go to Razzoo’s or venture off to other places we’d never been before. And we'd always, without fail, end up at Rise 'n Shine for breakfast at least once to make sure I had my "fix" of their homemade bread. Everyone knew her there.
Melinda was so attentive to her yard and her flowers... when I'd go on a trip I'd always look for a birdhouse for her to add to her collection. I'd buy them at the church auction, or at a roadside lawn decor store. She said she never really intended to collect those things, but we kept buying them for her anyway.
She painted all of our dogs onto Christmas ball ornaments, and always made Christmas cards that she drew, featuring her dogs.
Every time I took pictures of my flowers, she'd ask me to send her the best close-ups so that she could paint them. She never got around to painting last summer's dahlias, but I'm planning to get instruction from my art teacher to try my hand at it. It will never be quite like Melinda's, but it will make me think of her.
When Melinda had her stroke, she drove herself to the hospital. She knew I was on my way, but she drove herself anyway. I got there and no one was home... so I wandered to the neighbor's house. His wife was missing, so we just figured out they were likely together... this woman having a stroke and her neighbor who couldn't drive. I still shake my head. It took so much hard work, but Melinda fully recovered and finally got to where she could paint again. She gave me a watercolor of one of the photos from my trip to Italy with my sister that she'd painted post-stroke. So amazing.
Melinda always kept Mable and Meg and Maya for me when I'd go out of town. One time, I got home and took the girls home and when it came time for nightly treats, Maya started barking at me. Melinda had taught her to "speak" while I was away, so to this day Maya thinks that she just has to speak in order to get a treat. And if you don't get it fast enough, she'll keep "speaking" until you do.
Melinda made so many things... the wood etchings/burnings of our school pictures, sooo many paintings, the big paper mache nativity she'd have on her mantle and Christmas, ceramic candy dishes with our faces on them, cards with poems and caricatures, all the graphic designs she did for work.
She was into genealogy before genealogy was big, especially when you first started being able to research online. She stopped because she said she could feel herself getting addicted to it. She transcribed her grandparents' journals and love letters to one another.
She always told me the story about how she went with our little family (my mom, dad, sister and me) to Disney World when I was just five or six months old, and she was tasked with watching me while mom and dad took Kef on a ride. A lady yelled at her for letting me slip out of the stroller and she was so taken aback! She also told me that she felt they never took enough pictures of me because I was the "second child," so she took it upon herself to take more pictures of me.
One time, when I had been out to Old Runnels to change the flowers, I had asked her if she would throw away the old ones. She said sure, took them in the house, and laid them on the kitchen counter. In a little while, I got a phone call from her, telling me that I'd brought her a scorpion! It had been down in the bottom of the flower pot, and had ridden back from Ballinger with me in the grocery bag and had crawled out onto her kitchen counter and into her sink. We never forgot that!
She told me lots of stories about what it was like to be a woman (a professional) in a man's world, how you could get ahead without compromising your values, and how you had to be tough and sometimes you didn't get credit for your own ideas, but you had to know yourself and be proud of what you'd accomplished and pick your battles. And also, fight to get paid what you were worth.
There's really no good place to stop retelling Melinda’s stories… about the time she ran away from home with only doll clothes in her suitcase and she only got as far as the corner because she wasn't allowed to cross the street by herself… about the time she rode an elephant for a 1/2 mile from the Ringling train to the Fort Worth Convention Center, boosted atop by Gunther Gabel Williams himself… about all the trips she made to the Hill Country and to the Gulf with Martha… about the piece she wrote about Christmas Eve that was printed in the Ballinger paper.
There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think, “Oh, I need to call Melinda and tell her that,” only to stop short and realize, alas, I can no longer do that. It still stings.
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